Legal & Legislative Committee — 2019-05-13
Attendance
Manisha Bewtra ; Robert A. Boisselle ; Scott M. Forbes ; Jennifer L. Lemmerman ; Kate Lipper-Garabedian ; Shawn M. MacMaster ; Monica C. Medeiros ; Peter D. Mortimer ; John N. Tramontozzi ; Francis X. Wright Jr. ; Michael P. Zwirko
Agenda
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MAY 13, 2019 Aldermanic Chamber, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:15 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose Board of Aldermen may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the Board of Aldermen consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Francis X. Wright Jr. Chair Late 7:45 PM Manisha Bewtra Vice Chair Present Monica C. Medeiros Voting Present Scott M. Forbes Voting Absent Michael P. Zwirko Voting Present Jennifer L. Lemmerman President/Ex Officio Member Present Peter D. Mortimer Nonvoting Absent Robert A. Boisselle Nonvoting Present John N. Tramontozzi Nonvoting Present Kate Lipper-Garabedian Nonvoting Present Shawn M. MacMaster Nonvoting Present
ORDER-2019-82 Administrative Order AN ORDINANCE REGULATING THE REGISTRATION AND MAINTENANCE OF VACANT COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES IN THE CITY OF MELROSE Hold City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 5/16/2019 2:48 PM
Transcript
▶ 7:56 Manisha Bewtra: order i am the vice chair of the committee alderman manisha butra present our committee members voting members alderman Medeiros alderman Choice and ex-officio member president lemmerman non-committee members in attendance are alderman boycelle alderman Tramontozzi alderman Letter garabedian and alderman mcmaster this meeting is being recorded pursuant to mass general law chapter 30a section 22a broadcast live on mmtv and live streamed on mmtv3.org the recording will be available on the city website and online following tonight's meeting note that tonight we have an appropriations meeting scheduled for 7 30 p.m and a public hearing to review fiscal year 20 ambulance rates scheduled for eight o'clock pm if we're still discussing the order before this
▶ 8:49 Manisha Bewtra: committee until a few minutes before eight we will need to recess this meeting at that time and will return upon conclusion of the appropriations committee the legal and legislative committee has one order before it this evening before this committee addresses that order is there a motion to open the floor vote so move second uh the floor is now open for public comment this is the portion of the meeting where members of the public may speak on the item before us tonight good evening madam chair good evening let's see um i actually have some written comments that uh i was anticipating the legal and other legislative so i'm not sure if i have enough copies for everybody but i do have multiple copies so let me deliver the original to you
▶ 9:55 Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Thank you. And let's see, maybe show a community member. Alderman Medeiros and Alderman Zorco are the voting members, and Alderman Lipper-Garabedian is the sponsor. Thank you. So I think there'll be one more. President Lemmerman is ex-officio also. Correct. I apologize. Thank you. I'll see you. Give us an agenda. one james oh i'm sorry okay looks like you might have exactly enough except for myself thank you get along as long as you're keeping a copy keep that one i'll look on with sean we can make sure to circulate afterwards Well, to cut to the chase, I mean, I think I disagree with the principles behind the vacancy ordinance for a few, I think, fundamental reasons.
▶ 11:07 I think the concept of it, we all can agree on, which is to make Melrose as beautiful a community as we can do. I think this crosses over the line between public interest and private property rights. The reason why I say that is for a very fundamental point that this is a use, a public use of private property for a public purpose without any compensation. In lawyer terms, that's called a regulatory taking. It's a violation of the Constitution. I think there is a way of achieving the aim with getting into a constitutional question. I'm well aware that there are other towns that have these, which brings to a second point that I think you'll find that the towns that have them have much larger planning departments than we do.
▶ 12:19 They have economic development directors and they have a way of superintending it. Rita now, although you may not be aware of it, the planning office is up to its eyeballs in pending projects. You all saw the letter of the city to the mass housing people on the 4DB project on Swains Pond, and I think if you read that, you realize that there is a magnitude of projects in the works that the city planner is working on that are gonna bring substantial new growth revenue two and a half exempt to the city, but that require all the staff time. In the meantime, the same office handles grant applications and rezoning efforts and all the myriad of things. Honestly, I don't think they have time to administer the vacancy ordinance,
▶ 13:25 nor does the building inspector, who, again, is totally up to his eyeballs, and he'd be the first to tell you that is true. I think they've just hired some additional help to try and work down the backlog of project applications that have to be reviewed. These are the people who would be, you know, supervising this, and they, you know, I know that they feel they just don't have the time. The other thing is that there is no vacancy problem in Melrose. For every vacancy you think exists, believe me, there are all kinds of competing potential development projects, landlords who are in negotiations, property owners that are trying to make the deals. It's a well-known rule of thumb in greater Boston real estate development circles that it takes seven years from the inception of a project in the developer's brain to actual reality of opening it up for occupancy.
▶ 14:35 and that's because there is just an amazing as the chair can tell you network of regulatory reviews that have to be done through so if you see a vacant property and you think to yourself why is this vacant you can rest assured that it's it's not because the owner is not trying to get it occupied it's au contraire and you know adding another layer of bureaucratic mandate to a situation where property owners believe me already feel quite stressed by the recent increase in the affordable component from 10 to 15 percent there But I would point out to you that in that ordinance, there is compensation because for every affordable unit that you have to create by mandate, you get a bonus unit because of the same issue that we're talking about right now, which is the constitutional issue.
▶ 15:51 You can't just put the burden of complying with some perceived public need on a developer of private property without giving some thought to the idea of there has to be a quid pro quo. I'm not seeing that there is one here. On the other hand, I think there's a tremendous opportunity for some kind of voluntary program. I know that the Arts Council is very interested in this and I think that's great I think there are people who would you know provide the art and set it up for the landlords when they have vacant property I think there would be many if not all landlords who would think that was great but making it a mandate with the penalty no I don't think that this that's going to get great acceptance and
▶ 16:46 I'm gonna remind some of you of the anecdote that happened back in the Milano era on the building right across the street from us at the corner of Essex and Main. At that property, the landlord, the owner of that property tried to put a tenant in with a pizza shop. And funny thing, you know, the Board of Altamont felt we had quite enough pizza shop and they would not grant the common victuals license. That was clearly an illegal decision, but they made it anyway and it stuck. And the landlord went into a 30 year snit where he would not rehab this property, where he just kept it exactly the way it was. And until Mark Carroll was able to convince him to sell it to him and redid the building, that was the eyesore building of the downtown Melrose that we just couldn't
▶ 17:46 solve. So don't think that landlords or property owners are passively accepting of regulations that come down. So if you're going to put them into effect, you really have to do what we normally do in town which is is try to get some kind of partnership going with the private owners to make it voluntary program and see if that works before you go to a mandatory program so I appreciate the time I'm sure that there are other points of view but that's that's mine and I believe it's the point of view of you know the real estate owners and developers and landlord clients that i have thank you um mr bell uh i see you signed in but would you mind just stating your name and address for the record thank you robert bell 173 ashland street thank you
▶ 18:46 any further members of the public wishing to comment met if i share thank you very much um my name is eric slagle i live at 3 lincoln street by way of background I thought folks should know I'm a former member of the zoning board for the city of Melrose I've lived in the city for 15 years I am a land use attorney I practice in private practice for a firm in Boston called women page and then I worked for seven years in the law department for the city of Lowell and I'm currently the director of development services for the city of Lowell I was contacted by Alderman liver Garipay Bedean concerning this this ordinance and I'm here to speak in favor of it we in Lowell which is obviously a different different municipality than Melrose a lot of a lot
▶ 19:50 of different ways have a vacant foreclosed ordinance that has been on book since 2010 while we focus primarily on residential vacancies because of kind of the blight issues and neighborhoods that they caused our ordinance also does apply to commercial vacancies so I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the issues that were raised both by the mayor staff and their memo to the board and by the head of the planning department in her letter to the board as well it's my opinion based on having operated one of these ordinances for approximately a pool of between 500 and 800 vacant and foreclosed properties in the city of lowell that the administration for a this sort of program for commercial properties in melrose would be
▶ 20:48 be minimal there's only a pool of a couple of hundred commercial properties in the city as it is and as folks have mentioned there's not necessarily a large number of those are going to be vacant at any time so the maintenance of the program certainly not be a daily issue not even a weekly issue maybe a monthly issue and so as as far as as overtaxing an already overtaxed which i understand i i don't think that this would increase the the workload on those folks sufficient to to um to create any kind of problems in the department um while i do appreciate some of the issues that folks have brought up and i think attorney bell has an interesting perspective on it i i do think that in its current form what we're talking about is anticipating a relatively
▶ 21:41 minor annual fee that would could be waived if a property owner voluntarily agrees to put public art in them on the property that to me um is not um imposing something on a property owner for uh to to demand a public good but rather is allowing a property owner to take steps to offset a public problem which is a vacant building in a commercial district we all know we all drove past caruso's for years we understand that that had an effect on that corner it had effect on that strip i know when the building where coffee tea and me was had the structural problems and that was vacant that created a problem for for downtown and in a city like melrose that has such a limited supply of commercial properties i think the impact of of individual vacancies like that
▶ 22:35 it is greater than in a city like lowell that has you know 24 000 properties where one commercial vacancy might be lost in the in the shuffle um here because there's fewer they have a greater impact um uh i'm reading the the ordinance this does not feel to me like an overreach it doesn't feel to me like an onerous burden while i i do agree that a voluntary program if it were to go into effect could have positive impacts i also think that the the problems that you get from vacant properties often come with the people who wouldn't wouldn't join a voluntary program landlords who are not willing to participate or not willing to step up to the plate to take the um the responsibility for for updating rehabbing filling their buildings are the same landlords
▶ 23:30 that wouldn't participate in a voluntary program so i think that you would find kind of the venn diagram of folks who have long-term vacancies but are willing to step up and participate in a voluntary program might not be great and it's the ones that aren't in that group that are the ones that cause the problems so for my professional experience with this my personal experience alone in the city for for for a while um i think that this is a kind of a low burden for uh you know a positive impact um i certainly hope as i think all the members of the board do that it never becomes an issue that we don't have commercial vacancies that extend over 100 days but when we do it would be nice if the city had some recourse to at least bring that property owner to the table
▶ 24:20 and maybe the result is not public art maybe the result is a conversation with the planning department that allows them to to work to get a better tenant in there but giving this kind of ordinance some some backing of the board at least makes that property owner be responsive to the city when there's a vacancy like this whereas now um as as we've seen in some of the long-term vacancies that have happened they might just blow the city off um so that's uh those are my thoughts and i appreciate the time to speak to the board thank you any further members of the public thank you hi good evening um my name is deb corbett and i'm a artist in the community and a founding member of melrose arts and i'm also here to i guess sort of represent the other new art
▶ 25:30 groups that are happening follow your art as you probably know we'll be opening an art center the end of the summer and that's a very exciting development for our town and also last year was our second open studio tour under most MOST those two women were unavailable to come tonight so I'm speaking for them just really speaking as an artist I mean we live and work in isolation often and to be able to have the opportunity to show our work is pretty exciting I mean Melrose Arts does have the festival but we also do have an annual window walk anyway where merchants are paired up with artists and that's that sort of beautifies the downtown and believe it or not we have over 60 artists in our community that are working in various media and they
▶ 26:26 don't often have the opportunity to you know to show their work so if it comes to be that there's an empty property I'm all for decorating and I guess oh decorating is not the right word but you know for an artist to lend their work and you know it's kind of a privilege for them but it's also you know it's it's great exposure and I think visually it would be interesting so I don't really have a whole lot more to add unless you have any questions or this is a we're just taking public comment right now okay all right I'll just so I guess I'm done yep thank you all right yes I understand it's a little thank you for coming in yes thank you thank you any further members of the public wishing to comment on this order motion to close public comment madam chair second
▶ 27:35 Manisha Bewtra: public comment is now closed so again there's one order before us this evening order 2019-82 an ordinance regulating the registration and maintenance of vacant commercial properties in the city of Melrose sponsored by non voting member alderman Kate Letter Garabedian sir motion to suspend the rule so that we may hear from the sponsor of the order so move second Alderman Lipper-Garabedian thank you vice chair Bewtra and members of the committee and thank you Bob Eric and Deb for coming tonight it's really an honor to have members of the public speak as with other ordinances that have come before us in our first term as proposed I'm certainly open to and excited to hear from you all about this issue and would welcome refinements to this potential
▶ 28:24 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: solution to an issue that we face here since I've lived in Melrose there have been a number of commercial properties that have set vacant for months and some even for years many residents and our constituents were frustrated by the inactivity and have asked the city to do something about it so over the last 13 months I've completed extensive research on the issue of vacant properties and assessed how other municipalities handle it including through outreach to some in Massachusetts as you've noted tonight. I've also talked with a comprehensive set of stakeholders and city officials here at City Hall to strive to craft a balanced solution that strikes that right balance and acknowledges various perspectives. So the proposed ordinance before you would
▶ 29:10 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: provide the city with a new tool to address long-term vacancies which pose multiple challenges to our economic fatality and it would do this by creating a centralized online registry to assist with filling vacancies and it would create an opportunity for Melrose to showcase our amazing arts community and beautify our city as mentioned at least 40 towns and cities in Massachusetts have enacted vacant commercial property registration requirements including with the Express approval of the Attorney General's office in the case of Arlington there are various causes for vacancies including land speculation tax write-offs unrealistic rent setting and overwhelmed or disinterested owners regardless of the cause even temporary
▶ 29:56 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: vacancies do pose challenges for our city there is the potential for lost local tax revenue if we're talking about a restaurant space there is lost foot traffic for neighboring retail lost amenities for a neighborhood and potential public safety and security risks a vacant commercial property can repel would be customers and patrons from our commercial corridors and possibly reduce the quality of the consumer shopping experience it also can place an undue burden on city officials including police inspectional services and DPW the proposed ordinance before you aims to address these challenges in a mutually beneficial manner in the following three ways first by requiring the commercial property owner to register a vacancy 100 days after it
▶ 30:43 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: begins we ensure that each owner is known to our city and can be reached if necessary consistent with many ordinances and bylaws around Massachusetts that have these vacant property ordinances I've defined vacant property to be a commercial property or a portion of that property that is not occupied that is abandoned or that is not used for a period of at least 90 consecutive days and is not subject to an active building permit by opening a channel of communication between the city and the property owner we can help with identifying strategies that lead to tenants a strengthened line of communication also will ensure that owners are generally aware of their obligations and meet minimum standards of maintenance in Arlington which has
▶ 31:28 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: four times as many commercial properties as Melrose the city official responsible for oversight of its bylaw and she mentions this takes up about 5% of her time and I've modeled this draft on Arlington's she shared that the town now knows so much more about what's going on with the commercial properties in its district and the first year that Arlington passed its bylaw it saw the number of vacant properties dropped from 17 to 5 so first we have the requirement to register second by creating an online inventory of available commercial properties the city provides a one-stop shop for eager business owners and practitioners looking for commercial space think about the difference between an online inventory that includes information about the size of a property
▶ 32:15 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: what it is zoned for what the asking rent is and how to contact the owner compared to a sign in a building window that you're driving by that has an anonymous phone number and a for rent sign the property owners with whom I spoken are particularly positive about this aspect of the ordinance this aspect being the online registry of the inventory and so I've written it in such a way that any commercial property owner could register with a city even if the 90-day trigger hasn't hit and third by including an opportunity for owners to display art in their windows which I liked the word that Deb used to call it a privilege we beautify our streetscape we spotlight available storefronts in a positive way and we highlight the work of our local artists as you can see from
▶ 33:00 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: the ordinance and as you've heard tonight there are partnering organizations with capacity and expertise regarding art who are ready to support the implementation of this proposal and if an owner does not wish to display art in the windows or there is not space for art he or she can pay an annual $400 vacancy fee covering the costs up to the city of maintaining the online registry and ensuring appropriate maintenance of the vacant property meanwhile any owner can apply for a waiver of the fee at the time of registration on the grounds of demonstrable financial hardship and with respect to waivers I also want to note that there is a provision in this ordinance that I'm not sure I've seen in others that I've written it in a way to
▶ 33:40 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: provide wide discretion to city officials except for the requirement that a property owner must register with the city with once the vacancy hits 100 days city officials can exempt an owner from all other provisions of the ordinance when in their judgment the failure to use or occupy the space does violate the purpose of this ordinance I shared with you the memorandum I received last week communicating the mayor's administration does not support this proposal and like you at the very end of today I received the city planner similar memo I am sympathetic to the concerns about capacity which is why I included this provision in the ordinance that allows them to exercise their judgment and implementing it and it's also why I worked closely with the arts
▶ 34:22 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: community to ensure that the city has support for the arts component of the ordinance at the same time at least 40 cities and towns in Massachusetts including and as varied as Medford Gloucester Arlington Bellingham Long Meadow and Walpole have seen the value in this approach and have figured out a way to make it work our constituents have understandable frustrations with some of our vacant commercial properties and the good news is we don't have many to me that means our city officials will not have a massive undertaking on their hands if this ordinance is implemented instead we will be adopting an ordinance divorced from any particular crisis or particular set of facts that gives the city an additional tool to be proactive with respect to the health of our
▶ 35:06 Michael P. Zwirko: commercial sector meanwhile if an economic downturn comes to Melrose we'll have a framework already in place that can help us deal with an uptick in vacant properties thank you for your consideration and I'm really interested hear your perspectives I just want to acknowledge that Alderman Wright a chair of this committee has arrived for the record thank you at this time I'd like to move to attach the two memos that were referenced by Alderman Letter Garabedian one dated May 13th 2019 from Denise Gaffey the director of planning and community development as well as a memo have it here dated May 8th 2019 from city solicitor Robert van Campen second those orders will be attached are there any further comments at this time alderman Rita thank you I apologize for
▶ 36:14 Francis X. Wright Jr.: being late meeting at work I'm generally in support of this concept I can think one property in particular that has been vacant for a number of years and has become more and more run down and yet has been viewed by many traveling through our city based on its location there's been a lack of desire by ownership apparently to do anything to make it more presentable to the public and to the residents of the city and I believe that if this is structured in such a way that the owners of property and storefronts have the ability to avoid paying a fee by including local artists or perhaps the high school program that while the properties may be vacant and while the owners try to figure out either how to
▶ 37:31 Francis X. Wright Jr.: tenant them or await an economic downturn to to adjust that they can at least be presentable they can the the blight that comes from rundown properties is contagious in my opinion and can hurt business districts and I think anything we can do to keep up the presence of a business district where there is one or more empty storefronts is is to the benefit of the city and its residents I don't think that the overall effect of this on the day-to-day operations of the city is considerable as Alderman Lippert Garabedian noted there probably aren't going to be that many of these but when there's one and it's or two but one in particular I'm thinking of that has been here before it has drawn that one has drawn a lot of attention through the years and has you
▶ 38:36 Francis X. Wright Jr.: know I've even though it's not in my ward I've heard a lot of comments about it so while this isn't focused on that particular property it's indicative of what can happen when a property uh is vacant and and lays unattended to for a number of years so i well i believe this deserves some attention and work with the administration the concept in and of itself i think is worthwhile in pursuing thank you any further members wishing to alderman zero thank you uh thank you very much and thank you alderman Letter garabedian for bringing this up i think this ordinance proposed ordinance attempts to address a couple of issues one being properties that lay vacant for a while and are kind of unsightly and to the need I would say we actually have to
▶ 39:39 Monica C. Medeiros: incorporate art into our downtown and more so into our public life and I you know I know you've worked hard on this to to bring this forward I do share some of the concerns that this sort of crosses over into public you know into private property rights and a little bit outside of our scope I think if this were to move forward I think we could well I think we could probably accomplish the same thing with a voluntary system and which I think would be laudable to move forward and push forward if the administration would be amenable to that there's a number of things if we have a property that is one of the things we have to really make sure that we take care to do when we're in public life is to be fair and equal all across the board and in this a
▶ 40:51 Monica C. Medeiros: building or property owner that doesn't have streetscape would be forced to to pay this fee where property owners that that do have public window space wouldn't they don't have any option but other than to pay this fee and I don't think that that necessarily treats everyone equally in that some have the option and others don't I think there's also sort of a question of the subjectivity of of art and who says you know some of the questions are I would have is do the artists who put their art in the windows would they have an opportunity to sell that art and then if we the city are saying that this artist has that opportunity but another one doesn't um are we going into an arena where maybe we shouldn't be um so some of these things are
▶ 41:52 Monica C. Medeiros: a little bit of concern again if this were to move forward i would suggest in particular the the definition of property owner I think you've tried to be very inclusive of the owner of record and the tenant and the mortgagee and and so on but I think that actually is a little bit confusing and you know would it be if the property owner is if there's a landlord and a tenant and a mortgagee are all of those people I didn't put my phone on silent today sorry guys perfect timing of course and it's spam which is another problem that we face and I wish somebody could stop but you know we tried to cover so we have a an owner a tenant a mortgagee in the section of the property owner shall register are all all of these
▶ 42:55 Monica C. Medeiros: people registering or are all of these people subject to pay the fee I believe the intent is to just one of them per property so if if this were to move forward I would suggest maybe using the owner of record that is that either the registry deeds or to use the probably more simple to use the owner listed in the assessor's office which they get their information for the registry of deeds the online inventory in you know in in the real estate business there you know there is something MLS which is a service which has you know people use for multiple listing service and real estate agents use this frequently it is a private service but they use it frequently and regularly to advertise vacancies both in for sale as well as for for lease so there are some of these
▶ 43:57 Monica C. Medeiros: things out there but I think if we were to create an online registry of vacant properties we may also be inviting some public safety issues that we don't already have because now we're giving the public a notice of all of these properties that are vacant that somebody might be able to use to to squat or to use um for some other purpose so i think some of these things we we might want to look at but i don't generally i and for instance also the demonstrated financial hardship so there could be a waiver if there's a demonstra demonstrable financial hardship and again i think this is something that could be very subjective and you know what does that mean in general people who are owners of commercial
▶ 44:49 Monica C. Medeiros: property go into this in order to make money so they i don't think they want vacancies and i think some of the problems that we've had with the you know this a few particular pieces of property that have had um some noticeable you know one particular long time noticeable vacancy which i know there were extenuating circumstances especially with trying to determine who the owner was as a matter of fact um i'm fairly certain that they would all be able to show you that they will are having a loss if they have a vacant property because if you don't have a tenant most likely your expenses exceed your income and i i just i don't really think that this ordinance would solve some of the problems as intended but i do believe there's an
▶ 45:45 Manisha Bewtra: opportunity and i think it's one that we should pursue especially if there are many arts groups that are willing to participate in trying to set up a voluntary program so thank you thanks um i will state my comments and i'm watching the time i will likely need to recess unless folks are ready to figure out how we want to move forward I really appreciate the intention and the level of work behind this ordinance both to support economic development as well as our arts community I think you know seeing again Melrose Arts Melrose open studio tours and follow your arts efforts have really made a visible presence in our community and this could be a way of supporting them as well as beautifying our downtown I've seen programs like this in other
▶ 46:38 Manisha Bewtra: communities both in terms of public art but also sometimes just signage saying great things are happening in for example on Melrose Main Street as a way of again redirecting the something that may appear as blight without that sign edge at the same time I am concerned about our current capacity in the case of Arlington they have an economic development planner so although it's only 5% of her time and Arlington does have a much larger stock of commercial property we do not currently have that capacity and I think this is an opportunity for us to maybe think about how do we build economic development capacity in our community I also spoke with the building commissioner and planning director as well as the director of the Chamber of Commerce and
▶ 47:32 Manisha Bewtra: I think there is sort of mixed impressions in terms of whether we currently have a vacancy issue in Melrose or not I think those with sort of looking back over time through different economic cycles feel that you know our relatively small number of the commercial properties and the quick turnover overall other than a few um problematic uh or problematic properties um is that we don't really have much of a vacancy problem but i think those in our business community particularly those on uh in our main street district are feeling the pinch right now um i wanted to share let's check the time i'm just keeping track of that um a couple of thoughts that i reached out also to some colleagues one who is a former main streets program director so again
▶ 48:27 Manisha Bewtra: she was in a role where she was directly working as an economic development quarter coordinator for a nonprofit organization there are also business improvement districts which are more of a fee based organization that communities have and she had a number of thoughts on this as well as I reached out to some former colleagues at the Metropolitan Area Planning Council both from the arts and culture planning group as well as the economic development group so I will quickly summarize some of those questions that they raised from the Main Street director she asked is the art going to be provided for the building owner for free and would their existing liability insurance policy cover the art what if the art is damaged i believe the proposal addresses um sort of vacancy versus
▶ 49:21 Manisha Bewtra: if a building is currently in a build out phase and noting that some buildings are just harder to rent what if the property owner is working to redevelop the site into mixed use and needs it to be empty while working on permitting and financing um and then again finding ways to distinguish between property owners that are legitimately trying to plan fill up their spaces and those that aren't and finally her point was which I think was also raised by some of the folks at City Hall is sort of relationships between business owners and local government where they're sometimes all me this may exacerbate feelings of frustration with working with local government by having fee system and then from the folks that MAPC again not not a final opinion on
▶ 50:17 Manisha Bewtra: their part but just some questions that they raised are could a similar as a result be achieved by sort of separating out public art from the economic development ideas would it be more effective to generate a funding source for public realm beautification projects and should it be oriented to creating a disincentive for landlords to maintaining long-term vacancies perhaps we could consider a submission of a memorandum memorandum of an under understanding between an artist and arts organization and a property or owner as a qualifying circumstance so again sort of putting that decision-making outside of local government a little bit but still maybe under the auspices of an ordinance and again I think we're running out of time but questions
▶ 51:16 Manisha Bewtra: regarding with the the mo mo you be required to stipulate payments to the artists minimum size of our percentage of the time period of the vacancy that the art would need to be in place things like that and then some of my questions for um would this apply to a completely vacant building and would it apply only to properties would it apply to properties that don't have a ground floor sidewalk facing storefront so for the moment those are my comments um i'm going to ask that we motion to recess excellent um second thank you so we are recessing um for the appropriations committee and we will be back Good evening. The hour being 8.01. I'm calling to order on Monday, May 13th. I'm calling to order the Committee of Appropriations.
▶ 3:25:54 Michael P. Zwirko: before I comment on the order itself I know that ordinances generally have to start under the rules within legal and legislative I think given the makeup of the committee it might be best served as opposed to holding it in this committee maybe maybe transferring it to appropriations where it could be heard just so other folks would be voting members and they could add their their comments or any amendments so that's just a suggestion since it had its hearing this evening in legal and legislative so this ordinance so I know I know that Arlington did this and I want to say in 2017 and I followed it at the time because I did raise it with the administration at the time about something that should be considered and then in working with them I pulled back
▶ 3:26:48 Michael P. Zwirko: because it was it was very onerous at times for the departments to implement and then of course I reached out to the economic development coordinator in Arlington and I spoke with her about this and she was very objective in her analysis about it I I do think that even even herself she had some some concerns about the administration of it the financial hard strip is financial hard strip hardship is very stringent that the 90 days could be extended their longer time frames allow to be more thoughtful about what types of tenants creating a database of artists was was onerous so there were some it was a good conversation that we had at the time and I think that ultimately there was a comment that was made during the public portion about the but the most the
▶ 3:27:53 Michael P. Zwirko: Melrose outdoor camera what the acronym yes the open studio store thank you and and you know i really enjoyed that because there was a couple of photos actually from newfoundland which i admired i believe they were hanging outside of jacomo's at the time but i do think that there are ways that we can improve the downtown and in our community without without this specific ordinance and i i do i have to echo the concerns that were raised by the planning director office of community planning about um the caruso's property you know that that one was just i almost feel that this and a lot of what we hear in chatter in in melrose has to do with caruso's because everybody is just so frustrated with that property just languishing especially given its
▶ 3:28:42 Michael P. Zwirko: location and the fact that it's it was up until about two months ago that there was even a for lease sign that was placed on it you know i think we do have a very vibrant downtown here and i know back in 2008 2009 2010 downtown melrose looked like you know a lyric from a bruce springsteen song with whitewashed windows and that's not the case here the market that we offer businesses is a vibrant one you know we're a relatively affluent community i was just at the soft opening of the what will soon be the rising eagle and the owner of that restaurant stated that their reason for opening their type of tavern in melrose was because the 30 to 50 year old crowd is very active and very supportive of the restaurant industry and they feel that it's a
▶ 3:29:33 Michael P. Zwirko: it's a it's a market that will be very favorable for them and we know that that is to be the case quite frankly a lot of people actually wish we had more restaurants and to an earlier comment about you know too many pizza shops well if you don't want pizza shops don't eat pizza but these businesses are successful you know the reason that they're open is because they're successful so I think we do have a very good market here and and the turnover doesn't really take too long I mean in the slides presented earlier was feng shui and that's about to be open within a matter of weeks there are some businesses that fail and I wonder if it's actually either the quality of the building or the location of the building down in West Wyoming there's been some
▶ 3:30:15 Michael P. Zwirko: turnover recently next to cloud nine but across the street there's a building it's a white building it's small with a front glass storefront but it it has been several businesses over the years and nothing has really taken so query whether or not it's the quality of the building as opposed to its location because there has been economic development in that area just not in that building but I do think that like most the the spirit of this order is a good one i am very worried about and we saw this with the snow removal ordinance the issues that came up during that discussion over the imposition on the building inspections department i don't think that this program is tough to administer once it's up and running but i think once it's
▶ 3:31:00 Michael P. Zwirko: up and running or getting it up and running is actually quite difficult to do and i will also add that at least in the arlington example that position is run by an economic development coordinator not a senior planner not a planning director it's a specific role that is filled in similar communities by that type of a title and that type of a background so I wanted to provide my comments on this order I I appreciate the art component I I just wonder if it's a if if it's necessary given how much economic activity we have so I'll chairman Rita unless there's something else to be said I was gonna move I will move that we hold this matter in committee do I hear a second second I did think that I saw present another I'm
▶ 3:32:07 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: sorry wanting to apologize my my comments very very brief part of which we're going to be that I would certainly support holding this in whatever committee you know is appropriate because we did get some information in a very late hour and I just feel like I have some more thinking to do about this wanted to just very quickly say that well I'll save some things but one to perhaps for the maker of the order to ruminate on is I do agree with Alderman Medeiros concern brought up earlier about properties that do not have a publicly visible location and then being subject to a fine when they don't have any option to display art and maybe there could be an amendment to that I i have further sorry further comments um but i will save them uh if we are to hold this in
▶ 3:32:54 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: committee given the late hour apologies any further comments before we can i just um i won't discuss the substance of this tonight because i and i really appreciate the uh the feedback um i also just wanted to note that we did the board received several letters from constituents and in the past ordinance proposals we have attached those to the record so i would ask that the committee committee member maybe make that motion as well at some point thank you do we need to do something with the previous or uh motion are we can we act on this motion to attach the orders i believe we can attach the orders all right thank you second um any further discussion um so there was a motion on the floor to
▶ 3:33:51 hold us in committee and i believe we need a second from a voting member second second okay all in favor aye aye we are um a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn we are adjourned have a good night